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DIVINE FAVORS THAT CALL FOR GRATITUDE, AND THE MANNER 
IN WHICH THEY SHOULD BE EXERCISED. 



SERMON 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AND SOCIETY IN DRACUT 



AT THE 



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Nov. 30, 1826. 



By JOSEPH MERRILL, 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN DRACUT, MASS. 







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PRINTED BY FLAGG AND GOULD. 

1826. 



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SERMON. 



Isaiah li. 3. 

" JOY AND GLADNESS SHALL BE FOUND THEREIN, THANKSGIVING AND 
THE VOICE OF MELODY." 

The passage in connexion with these words was 
spoken by the Messiah to encourage his people. 
He says, " Hearken unto me, ye that follow right- 
eousness, ye that seek the Lord." He then directs 
the attention of these to their commencement as 
a people. They are to look to Abraham their 
progenitor, who was, when God called him, an idol- 
ater. But God had blessed him and Sarah, and in a 
wonderful manner made their posterity innumera- 
ble. From this they might be assured that he would 
yet comfort Zion. She was to put on her mourn- 
ing in the Babylonish captivity : and even after her 
return she would be called to pass through much 
darkness and distress. And when the Messiah 
should come he should be cut off, and the whole na- 
tion rejected. And after this she should be follow- 
ed by persecutions, desolating and cruel, and plung- 
ed in the night of papal darkness, and almost over- 
whelmed in mystical Babylon. But notwithstand- 
ing all these things the Lord would comfort Zion ; 
he would comfort her waste places, and make her 



wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the gar- 
den of the Lord. Joy and gladness should be found 
therein ; that is, in Zion, thanksgiving and the voice 
of melody. 

And did not God fulfil his promise in some meas- 
ure to our ancestors who came to this then wide 
wilderness to enjoy the rights of conscience, who 
were uniformly pious, and who literally turned the 
wilderness into fruitful fields, and the desert into 
rich productive gardens. And when they had gath- 
ered of the bounty of heaven a supply for the ensu- 
ing year, joy and gladness were found among them, 
thanksgiving and the voice of melody. 

Joy and gladness are not incompatible with the 
most devout and holy exercises of God's creatures. 
David says, " In his presence is fulness of joy :" and 
Paul exhorts us to rejoice always. And we are 
taught by the prophet that when God shall comfort 
Zion and make her wilderness like Eden, and her 
desert like the garden of the Lord,j0^ and gladness 
shall be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of 
melody. Here is a prediction, that God's people 
will rejoice and give thanks for the blessings he be- 
stows upon them. Let us in the following discourse, 
first notice some of the principal divine favors which 
call for our gratitude ; and, secondly, how it should 
be exercised. 

I. I am to notice some of the principal divine 
favours which call for our gratitude. 

1. The gift of his Son. Paul considered this 
worthy of thanksgiving. Says he, M Thanks be to 
God for his unspeakable gift ;" a gift that could not 
in any sense be described. Without it we must all 



have perished for ever. It was infinitely important 
and necessary for us. This procures for us all our 
enjoyments in this life, our state of probation, our 
hopes of escaping that death which was denounced 
upon man for transgression. This gift is sufficient 
to make atonement for our sins, and lay a found- 
ation for pardon of all that repent and accept of 
Christ; to open a way to eternal life, so that the vil- 
est sinners may escape from misery and obtain heav- 
en. It is sufficient to remove from us the wrath of 
God, if we accept it, and restore us to his favor, and 
to his image, in which we were originally created. 

This is the gift which saves lost sinners. Christ 
came into the world to seek and to save that which 
was lost. No mortal can conceive the greatness of 
this gift. Think of eternal burnings, of unutterable 
woe, to be continued without hope of deliverance 
for ever; to be banished from God, to be made 
most deformed and loathsome by sin ; to be a mon- 
ster of iniquity and ingratitude, and to dwell forev- 
er among those who are as loathsome as ourselves, 
and by them to be tormented day and night for ev- 
er ; and think what it would be to be delivered from 
such a state and raised to the enjoyment of God, to 
participate the blessings of eternal life, to dwell in 
the presence of God and contemplate his beauty 
and glory, and his works of creation, providence, 
and redemption, and if you can conceive of these 
things, then may you have some apprehensions of 
the unspeakable gift of God in his Son. 

And where could another such a gift be found. 
He is styled the only begotten of the Father ; he has 
no compeer, he is heir of all things, he has obtain- 



6 

ed a better name and inheritance than the high- 
est order of angels ; he is God's well beloved Son, 
who dwelt in the bosom of the Father, whom the 
Father loved. He was dearer to the Father than 
all his creatures, as he is the only begotten, and 
heir of all things. But he so loved the world that 
he gave this Son to redeem us from iniquity. 

And though this is the greatest gift in the power 
of heaven to bestow ; though angels were commis- 
sioned to announce the blessing to men ; yet, how 
many never had one spark of true gratitude to God 
for this unspeakable gift ? This should call forth 
our warmest daily thanks, and this shoulders* kindle 
a flame of gratitude upon our holy days, and when- 
ever we approach the more immediate presence of 
God. 

How miserable must we have been for ever if 
God had not provided for us a Savior ! And as 
this gift is unspeakable, so it will be the theme of 
thanksgiving and praise in the church in every age, 
especially in its latter day glory, and in its triumph- 
ant state in heaven. 

2. The enjoyment of the means of grace should 
excite our constant gratitude to God. It should be 
accounted the greatest blessing next to having a 
Savior, that we have the word of God in our hands, 
and are permitted to enjoy its ministry ; and that we 
have the various means of becoming savingly ac- 
quainted with God. Those who are destitute of 
the gospel, and of the means of grace are emphati- 
cally said to be in darkness ; while those who pos- 
sess them are in the light. 



The one may be compared to a traveller journey- 
ing in a strange country, in a trackless desert, over- 
taken by night, surrounded with clouds and dark- 
ness, and having nothing upon which he can depend 
to guide him in the way of safety. There may in- 
deed be here and there a glimmering star, but he 
has no means of knowing in what part of the hori- 
zon they are, and he must wander not knowing whith- 
er he goes. 

The other may be compared to one travelling in 
the light of day in a beaten path, with all the direc- 
tions necessary to conduct him safe, through his 
journey. 

To have the gospel in our hands, and the privi- 
lege of reading it and praying over it, is a treasure 
richer than all the golden mines on earth. What 
rich provisions does it yield for the support of the 
soul ! It enriches the mind with divine knowledge ; 
it prepares it to receive the light of life ; it casts it 
in a nobler mould than nature can afford. It is the 
gospel and the means of grace that have been en- 
joyed in Christian lands that has raised them so 
much above the benighted pagan and savage. It 
is not civilization that stamps a godlike beauty and 
glory upon the mind of man. It may be cultivated 
and brought to all the perfection of which it is ca- 
pable without the gospel, and still it lies degraded. 
It wants those features which shed a divine lustre 
upon it. Its movements are terrestrial and in a dark 
and circumscribed sphere, compared with the act- 
ings of a mind enriched with the light of the gospel, 
and imbued with its holy, and heavenly, and philan- 
thropic spirit. 



It is the gospel and the enjoyment of the means 
of grace that has broke the thick darkness that cov- 
ered the earth, that has laid the foundation of those 
principles in man which now begin to develop ; 
and which will, I trust, operate like leaven, till the 
whole earth shall awake, and march forward under 
their influence, and be filled with joy and gladness, 
and thanksgiving and the voice of melody. Too 
lightly do we value our religious privileges, as is 
manifest by our abuse of them. 

It was to enjoy the gospel and the means of 
grace without molestation, that the Pilgrims left 
their native shore and crossed the boisterous ocean, 
and encountered all the evils of a barren wilder- 
ness, and of exposure to merciless savages. Their 
sacrifices, their conduct, shows how they valued the 
gospel and means of grace ; and they esteemed it 
their highest privilege to transmit so rich an inher- 
itance to us their sons. And not unfrequently on 
account of these same privileges were the woods 
made vocal by their songs and thanksgiving to God ; 
and for them they were led to consecrate one day 
each year, as well as for other benefits, to religious 
joy and gladness, and thanksgiving, and raising the 
voice of melody. They laboured, they suffered, and 
fought, and bled, almost at every pore ; and might 
almost be said to merit those blessings for which 
they gave thanks to God ; but we receive them by 
inheritance, and yet are less grateful, and pious, and 
holy, it is to be feared, than they. 

3. Another of the divine favors which should 
excite our gratitude is the pouring out of God's Ho- 
ly Spirit. This is an indication that the time is 



near when God will comfort Zion. He does by this 
comfort her waste places, and cause her wilderness 
to become as Eden, and her desert like the garden 
of the Lord. This blessing is based upon the gift 
of God's Son, and the enjoyment of the means of 
grace. And this blessing is unspeakably great. 
Where God's spirit is specially poured out, pre- 
cious immortal souls are regenerated, translated from 
darkness to God's marvellous light, from the power 
and kingdom of satan into the kingdom of God's 
dear Son. All the other blessings will never save a 
soul from hell without the special grace of God. 

How then should we rejoice when God appears 
in this manner to comfort and build up Zion and 
save precious souls. Even the angels in heaven re- 
joice over one sinner that repents. It is this out- 
pouring of God's spirit that causes the spiritually 
blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk ; 
it is this which opens a new world upon dark perish- 
ing mortals, who believe and share in the rich grace 
of God. It is this which plucks sinners from the 
jaws of hell and ruin, brings them from the path of 
sin, and sets them in the path of life ; which enables 
them to see their ruined state, and fills them with 
joy and gladness at their escape from the gulf 
which lay before them. It is the out-pouring of 
God's spirit that brings Christ upon earth again, and 
sheds the pure spirit of his gospel, and life upon all 
who repent and believe. This is the shower which 
causes the word of life to fructify and spread through 
the soul, and which produces a truly golden harvest 
the fruit of eternal life. 
2 



10 

Wherever the spirit of God is poured out there 
is joy and gladness. There may be weeping for the 
night, but joy cometh in the morning. Thus it was 
on the day of Pentecost. They did eat their meat 
with gladness, praising God. And when the Spirit 
was poured out upon Samaria upon the preaching 
of Philip, it is written, " There w T as great joy in that 
city." And this always has produced joy and glad- 
ness in the hearts of God's people, from that day 
to the present. 

There is nothing like the out-pouring of God's 
spirit to arrest the progress of iniquity, to frustrate 
the plans of the great enemy of souls, or to excite 
the rage and malice of wicked men. And what can 
so rejoice and gladden the hearts of God's people, 
as to have iniquity destroyed, and the enemy of souls 
defeated, and wicked men brought to feel upon the 
subject of religion. 

No doubt the words of the text allude to the 
out-pouring of God's spirit, and the complete estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of Christ upon the earth. 
And we have peculiar cause of gratitude in this Com- 
monwealth that God has in many places the past year, 
as well as in former years, granted these showers 
of blessings to descend upon them, and fill them 
with gladness and joy, thanksgiving and the voice of 
melody. And his mercy-drops are even now distill- 
ing " like the small dew upon the tender herb," up- 
on some favoured places ; which calls for our grati- 
tude and praise. And may we not hope that some 
amongst us have experienced the joys of pardoned 
sin, and are prepared to praise God with different 
affections from what they have usually exercised up- 



11 

on this anniversary ? If one soul has repented, there 
has been joy in the presence of God, and gives oc- 
casion for thanksgiving and praise to him. 

4. Our civil privileges, and our prosperity as a 
community call for our peculiar gratitude. No peo- 
ple can be more perfectly in the enjoyment of liber- 
ty than the citizens of this commonwealth. We 
may justly boast of our liberty in dependence upon 
God. Tyranny or slavery in any form cannot here 
exist. It is not presumed that our government is 
perfect, that there are not many imperfections in 
the administration of justice, for there will be im- 
perfections in all human governments. But as the su- 
preme power is in an important sense lodged in the 
hands of the people, and the executive officers are 
frequently elected by the great body of the people, 
and the laws are subject to revision and repeal, we 
must be in the perfect enjoyment of civil liberty. So 
far as we are an independent State, this is true ; but 
how much of the stigma of the slave holding states 
can properly be attached to us on account of the 
compact with the general government, I shall not 
take it upon me to decide. But whether we are 
stained by our sister states' coloured population or 
not, we should be forward to wipe out the blot up- 
on our country produced by the inhuman practice 
of buying and selling and holding in bondage our 
fellow man, because he is found " guilty of a skin 
not coloured like our own." 

Our civil institutions protect our religious liber- 
ty, and extend to the education of the rising gener- 
ation, to the encouragement and care in some res- 
pects of our literary institutions. They are open to 



12 

all of every denomination, and every sect enjoys an 
equal privilege, if we except Harvard University, 
which I consider now under Unitarian domination. 
■ — Under these institutions the people increase in 
wealth and population. Commerce, agriculture, 
manufactures flourish, and promise to pour into the 
State such a tide of w r ealth, as to enable her citizens 
to do much in promoting institutions of charity, and 
disseminating the word of life among the nations sit- 
ting in darkness, as well as in making internal im- 
provements, and rendering society within herself 
more happy. 

5. Our health and the common bounties of God's 
providence demand the gratitude of our hearts. 
Health is a blessing without which all other bless- 
ings of a temporal nature are little enjoyed. Though 
sickness has prevailed in some individual places, 
yet the people of this State have generally enjoyed 
the past year a good measure of health. And 
though sickness has visited many of our habitations, 
we are called to acknowledge with gratitude the 
goodness of God in raising so many of us from the 
borders of the grave to so much health as we now 
enjoy ; and that so few of those who have been sick 
have been called to meet their final Judge. How 
thankful should we be that we are now in health, 
and enjoy so many of the bounties of God's provi- 
dence. 

We have reason to bless him that he did not 
send drought to cut off our former and latter harvest, 
that he did not send such an abundance of rain as 
wholly to destroy what had come to maturity ; and 
that we may now appear before him in the prospect 



13 

of having food and raiment, and something to send 
in portions to the poor. All the comforts and con- 
veniencies of life are the gift of God, and demand 
our constant and lively gratitude, and our particular 
remembrance on this occasion. 

These, my hearers, are some of the principal 
things that call for our gratitude to God upon this 
joyful and solemn day. I now proceed to notice — 

II. How it should be exercised. 

1. By our charity and liberality. If God remem- 
bers us, and visits us with such rich blessings, with 
health, and the bounty of his Providence, we ought 
to remember our fellow creatures. If God has so 
loved us, as to give his Son, ive ought to love one an- 
other. Let us not therefore love in word, neither in 
tongue, but in deed and in truth. If we receive at 
the hand of God those things which are necessary 
for our comfort and convenience in abundance, we 
ought not to grasp them as though they were obtain- 
by our own wisdom and strength. 

We should seek to obtain the blessing of God 
by remembering the poor, and bestowing such things 
as we have upon the needy. God has said, " Bless- 
ed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will 
deliver him in time of trouble." And our liberality 
may not only evince the genuineness of our grati- 
tude, but cause others to abound in thanksgiving 
to God. Says Paul, " God loveth a cheerful giver, 
and God is able to make all grace abound towards 
you, that ye always having all sufficiency in all 
things may abound unto every good work, being en- 
riched in every thing to all bountifulness, which 
causeth through us thanksgiving to God." For the 



14 

administration of this service not only supplieth the 
wants of the saints, but is abundant also by many 
thanksgivings unto God. We cannot be suitably 
thankful to God while we hold his bounty with the 
hand of coveteousness. 

2. We are to express our gratitude by spiritual 
worship. The time has come when God requires 
those that worship him, to worship him in spirit and 
truth. And no formal, external worship will be ac- 
cepted instead of it. All those expressions of joy 
and gratitude, which flow from animal spirits, from 
the natural man, come infinitely short of true grati- 
tude to God. He commands us to worship him in 
spirit ; but we are by nature dead in trespasses and 
sins. We must therefore repent before we can ren- 
der to God the gratitude he requires. There is joy 
in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. And 
there is joy and gladness and thanksgiving and the 
voice of melody, in the sense of the text, only, where 
there is genuine repentance for sin. 

And hence we see men improve these seasons 
of thanksgiving to gratify their lusts. They remain 
in impenitence, and imagine that he requires only 
those external expressions, such as the heathen 
would render to an idol. But has God any pleas- 
ure in these things? He requires praise that we 
should glorify him ; truth in the inward parts, or 
we stand condemned before him. How can we 
praise God for the gift of his Son, if we refuse to 
have him for our Savior ? And how can we praise 
him for the gospel, and means of grace, if we slight 
them, and disobey God's command? And how shall 
we bring a thank-offering to God for any benefit, if 



15 

we come not through Christ? No man can come 
to the Father but by him. The soul must enter in- 
to these things with life, with love, and gratitude to 
God, or all our service will be only abomination to 
the Lord. We should feel our dependence upon 
mercy and grace, we should accept of Christ as 
he is offered us in the gospel, and submit to his 
reign, if we would render to him true gratitude. 
We should express our joy in praising God with all 
the heart, resolving to obey all his will, and to trust 
in him for salvation. We should sing his praises 
in songs of melody, singing with the spirit and the 
understanding also. We should approach him with 
those holy affections in our songs and praises, which 
fill the hearts of those worshippers, who stand bend- 
ing before his throne, day without night, and render 
honor and praise and thanksgiving, to him that sit- 
teth upon the throne and unto the Lamb. 

And if such is the manner in which our gratitude 
ought to be expressed, what are we to think of their 
service who spend these sacred and solemn days, 
made sacred by the usage of our pious ance stors, in 
worldly pleasure and amusement, and intemperance, 
and the indulgence of every unhallowed passion ? 
What, indeed, shall we say of those who pay a de- 
cent respect externally to the day, but whose hearts 
are barred against the Savior, who lightly value his 
word, who ridicule and deprecate the out-pouring of 
God's spirit, as though there were no such thing, 
as the special operation of the Spirit upon the heart 
of man ? And what shall be said of the gratitude of 
those who hoard and consume upon their lusts all 
that a gracious and merciful Providence may bestow 



16 

upon them, without opening the hand of chanty, or 
making one effort to send the cheering light of the 
Gospel to those who sit in gross darkness ? We 
are made stewards of God's bounty while here, and 
to whom much is given, much will of them be re- 
quired. And, "It is required of stewards that a 
man be found faithful." 

Though we have much to excite our gratitude 
as a people in this place, ought we not to consider 
that Providence frowns upon us for our abuse of his 
mercies, by sending upon us the abundant and griev- 
ous afflictions we have experienced in past years ? 
And while we remember his mercies in gratitude, 
should we not lament for our sins ? And may we 
not expect that he will continue to visit us with 
judgments, unless, as a people, we repent of our sins 
and turn to him with all the heart ? 

These seasons of praising God in his earthly 
temple will soon be over. And then we shall find 
that our principal cause of gratitude to God was our 
spiritual blessings and privileges ; then shall we 
v ew with wonder the unspeakable gift of God's Son, 
the blessings of the Gospel, and the special influen- 
ces of the Holy Spirit. 

Temporal blessings may only be snares to our 
souls, which may procure their ruin. They may 
cherish our pride, lead to ungodliness, and intem- 
perance, and innumerable evils ; when, if poverty 
had been our lot, we might have been rich in faith, 
and among those in Zion that shall be comforted. 
Let us then set a just value upon every blessing we 
receive at the hand of God ; let us repent of all our 
sins, and endeavor to be prepared to give an account 



17 

of our stewardship. Let us seek to God above all 
for his Holy Spirit that we may be renewed by 
his grace, and prepared to praise him in a spiritual 
manner. 

In vain do we enjoy the blessings of the gospel, 
civil liberty, health, and the bounties of Providence, 
and all the light of the glorious gospel, unless it 
shine into our hearts, unless our souls be enlighten- 
ed, and we obey as well as enjoy the word of life. 
Never will the Lord comfort any as he comforts Zi- 
on, till they obey his word ; and then shall their 
wilderness be like Eden, and their desert like the gar- 
den of the Lord ; joy and gladness shall be in them, 
thanksgiving and the voice of melody* Amen. 



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